ectively places a KGB-derived culture and mentality in the saddle. Along with that comes all the fun and games these guys are past masters at playing. Anyone who imagines that a wolf can morph into a sheep by play-acting at democracy, needs to look more closely at what has been going in Russia over the past few years. It’s very clear Putin still holds old allegiances and old ambitions, that have merely been re-modeled to meet current challenges and opportunities. He also has oil and that can give a man a 007 complex, including the license that goes with the number.

Of course none of this makes him directly resp

A few people who have written about the poisoning death of Aleksander Litvinenko hold the view that since no shred of tangible evidence ... no smoking gun or trail of blood ... leads to the Kremlin door, any insinuation directed at Vladimir Putin is pushing the envelope or paranoid at worst.

While I would refrain from joining the “he dun it” chorus, enough circumstantial collateral has accrued since Putin took power to make suspicions very far from mere supposition. There is in fact very good reason to suspect the hand of the Kremlin in many of these bizarre deaths - and by “hand” I’m not inferring direct action by the way, as in "hi this is Putin, go whack L!". A wink or a nod might be all that was required to set the ball rolling, while leaving no track-back to any occupant of higher office. And the head that was nodded didn’t necessarily have to be Putin’s. There might well have been four, five or even six heads nodding down the line, before Sergei Poloniumevski put on his black leather jacket and called his friend the chemist. But to argue without nuance that Putin is off-the-hook - a victim of ill-placed suspicion in the deaths of regime opponents over the past few years, is to risk coming off as extremely naive. There might a 1,000 to 1 chance that he is pure as riven snow, but I'll save my money for the horse races.

In a post beneath I touched on what we do know about Tsar Vlad. We know he has muzzled the press. We also know he has made sweeping legislative changes geared toward centralizing power in the Kremlin (although some of this may indeed have been forced on him by circumstances). We know he used underhanded tactics and a dodgy court to nail Yukos and other players to the wall. We know he dislikes foreign NGO’s and seems to feel threatened by any organization within his domain that he can’t control. Being an ex-KGB Lt Colonel, he doubtless feels uneasy about potential spies functioning under the cover of foreign operations, and doubtless the man has very good reason to feel concerned. I completely empathize.

The psychological profile that emerges from all we do know about Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is not one that inspires confidence when it comes to democratic behaviors such as freedom of speech, including the right to air dirty laundry in public. Vlad is not cool, despite his elfin features and boy scout smile. He keeps his friends close and his enemies closer, in ways they might prefer he didn't. His rise to power effectively places a KGB-derived culture and mentality in the saddle. Along with that comes all the fun and games these guys are past masters at playing. Anyone who imagines that a wolf can morph into a sheep by play-acting at democracy, needs to look more closely at what has been going in Russia over the past few years. It’s very clear Putin still holds old allegiances and old ambitions, that have merely been re-modeled to meet current challenges and opportunities. He also has oil and that can give a man a 007 complex, including the license that goes with the number.

Of course none of this makes him directly respo

n by the way, as in "hi this is Putin, go whack L!". A wink or a nod might be all that was required to set the ball rolling, while leaving no track-back to any occupant of higher office. And the head that was nodded didn’t necessarily have to be Putin’s. There might well have been four, five or even six heads nodding down the line, before Sergei Poloniumevski put on his black leather jacket and called his friend the chemist. But to argue without nuance that Putin is off-the-hook - a victim of ill-placed suspicion in the deaths of regime opponents over the past few years, is to risk coming off as extremely naive. There might a 1,000 to 1 chance that he is pure as riven snow, but I'll save my money for the horse races.

In a post beneath I touched on what we do know about Tsar Vlad. We know he has muzzled the press. We also know he has made sweeping legislative changes geared toward centralizing power in the Kremlin (although some of this may indeed have been forced on him by circumstances). We know he used underhanded tactics and a dodgy court to nail Yukos and other players to the wall. We know he dislikes foreign NGO’s and seems to feel threatened by any organization within his domain that he can’t control. Being an ex-KGB Lt Colonel, he doubtless feels uneasy about potential spies functioning under the cover of foreign operations, and doubtless the man has very good reason to feel concerned. I completely empathize.

The psychological profile that emerges from all we do know about Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is not one that inspires confidence when it comes to democratic behaviors such as freedom of speech, including the right to air dirty laundry in public. Vlad is not cool, despite his elfin features and boy scout smile. He keeps his friends close and his enemies closer, in ways they might prefer he didn't. His rise to power effectively places a KGB-derived culture and mentality in the saddle. Along with that comes all the fun and games these guys are past masters at playing. Anyone who imagines that a wolf can morph into a sheep by play-acting at democracy, needs to look more closely at what has been going in Russia over the past few years. It’s very clear Putin still holds old allegiances and old ambitions, that have merely been re-modeled to meet current challenges and opportunities. He also has oil and that can give a man a 007 complex, including the license that goes with the number.

Of course none of this makes him directly resp

might a 1,000 to 1 chance that he is pure as riven snow, but I'll save my money for the horse races.

In a post beneath I touched on what we do know about Tsar Vlad. We know he has muzzled the press. We also know he has made sweeping legislative changes geared toward centralizing power in the Kremlin (although some of this may indeed have been forced on him by circumstances). We know he used underhanded tactics and a dodgy court to nail Yukos and other players to the wall. We know he dislikes foreign NGO’s and seems to feel threatened by any organization within his domain that he can’t control. Being an ex-KGB Lt Colonel, he doubtless feels uneasy about potential spies functioning under the cover of foreign operations, and doubtless the man has very good reason to feel concerned. I completely empathize.

The psychological profile that emerges from all we do know about Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is not one that inspires confidence when it comes to democratic behaviors such as freedom of speech, including the right to air dirty laundry in public. Vlad is not cool, despite his elfin features and boy scout smile. He keeps his friends close and his enemies closer, in ways they might prefer he didn't. His rise to power effectively places a KGB-derived culture and mentality in the saddle. Along with that comes all the fun and games these guys are past masters at playing. Anyone who imagines that a wolf can morph into a sheep by play-acting at democracy, needs to look more closely at what has been going in Russia over the past few years. It’s very clear Putin still holds old allegiances and old ambitions, that have merely been re-modeled to meet current challenges and opportunities. He also has oil and that can give a man a 007 complex, including the license that goes with the number.

Of course none of this makes him directly resp

t Colonel, he doubtless feels uneasy about potential spies functioning under the cover of foreign operations, and doubtless the man has very good reason to feel concerned. I completely empathize.

The psychological profile that emerges from all we do know about Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is not one that inspires confidence when it comes to democratic behaviors such as freedom of speech, including the right to air dirty laundry in public. Vlad is not cool, despite his elfin features and boy scout smile. He keeps his friends close and his enemies closer, in ways they might prefer he didn't. His rise to power effectively places a KGB-derived culture and mentality in the saddle. Along with that comes all the fun and games these guys are past masters at playing. Anyone who imagines that a wolf can morph into a sheep by play-acting at democracy, needs to look more closely at what has been going in Russia over the past few years. It’s very clear Putin still holds old allegiances and old ambitions, that have merely been re-modeled to meet current challenges and opportunities. He also has oil and that can give a man a 007 complex, including the license that goes with the number.

Of course none of this makes him directly resp

ectively places a KGB-derived culture and mentality in the saddle. Along with that comes all the fun and games these guys are past masters at playing. Anyone who imagines that a wolf can morph into a sheep by play-acting at democracy, needs to look more closely at what has been going in Russia over the past few years. It’s very clear Putin still holds old allegiances and old ambitions, that have merely been re-modeled to meet current challenges and opportunities. He also has oil and that can give a man a 007 complex, including the license that goes with the number.

Of course none of this makes him directly responsible for the killing of Litvinenko. I am certain a lot goes on in the name of the Russian state, many bumps in the night, that Putin knows little about. Even in the case of murdered dissidents, businessmen and journalists, it is stretching it to believe that Putin was directly involved. Why implicate himself in matters that take care of themselves in the grand old Kremlin style? Institutional disapproval toward those who fall foul of the golden boy's good graces, coupled with an in-built climate of permission, may well result in things happening. Does this mean that Putin at all times keeps a sanitized distance from murky goings on? Again we don't know, but my hunch is probably not. However when you are head honcho of a huge system that does in fact keep some pretty shady customers on the pay roll, and you are viewed by many as the shining symbol of the new Russia, a tweak of the pinky could well be all that is required for funny stuff to happen.

The expatriate Russian community can't be ruled out in the case of UK incidents. Given Putin's efforts to establish working relations, it may not be in his interests to rock the boat with something so sensational as a high profile poisoning. There have been whisperings about Russian oligarch-in-exile, Boris Berezovsky. But Litvinenko from what we know had a long-standing relationship with Berezovsky, with no published reports of any rift.

Aside from the Litvinenko incident, there have been many other attempts to target people who have publicly been critical of the Russian government, and specifically of Vladimir Putin. Although I doubt any direct link will ever be established connecting the Kremlin with these crimes, because of the diplomatic damage that would ensue, it's difficult to believe "rogue elements" could be responsible for all of this. A look at Russian history demonstrates that political assassinations were virtually business-as-usual in some eras.

Many of the Tsars of old were very clever at remaining above the dirty work, not hard when you have a reliable hierarchy of underlings (and Putin has worked hard at maintaining his connections). It’s sort of a venerable Russian tradition. As the victims keel over, the head man maintains the necessary sang-froid and stays above the unpleasantness. Stalin was good at that. He never broke a sweat, even when he refused to deal with the Germans in WW2 to obtain the release of his own son. He was even heard to remark “I have no son”.

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